"I know! Let's pretend we're hunting," said Nellie as we began our walk. "I'll be your hunting dog, and you be the hunter. It's okay that you don't have a gun. We're just pretending anyway."
"Okay," I agreed, "but you'll have to tell me what to do."
"Don't I always?" she retorted.
Down the 
lane we went, Nellie quite a bit ahead of me. She checked for apples under the old apple trees, then hurried on her way, stopping once or twice to make sure I was coming along. When I finally caught up to her, she was on point at the Plank homestead. The house was torn down long ago, but the driveway, the big tree, the rose and lilac bushes clearly identify the site. Nellie has been standing on point for some minutes, waiting for 
me. She didn't move a muscle but rolled her eyes in my direction. "I've been waiting for you," she said quietly, barely above a whisper. "Come up by me." I complied.
As I cautiously approached her, Nellie suddenly moved into the bushes and began to sniff around. Round and round the bushes she went but nothing flushed. "This can't be," she muttered to herself. "I know I smelled something in here." Ignoring me, she dropped to her haunches and moved along the ground, sniffing fervently. "It just has to be here," she muttered again. Dropping closer to the ground, she crep
t along, nose to the ground, sniffing all the while she moved up the driveway.
Suddenly a lone hun (Hungarian partridge) got up and flew off. Nellie ran off after it, as if that would do any good. Mike would call her back, but today Nellie is "calling the shots."
We finished our "pretend hunt" without any other clear finds, but Nellie kept looking.
The barn i
s always a good place to hunt.
And that's the way it goes with the fall walks -- if you're Nellie and Kathy. KW
7 comments:
Just like Mother West Wind's Children! :) I love talking animals.
Did you read Mother Westwind's Children? Seems like there was an old copy of it in your room when you were little -- maybe we found it on the farm? Did we read it together? I don't remember. Have you read The Wind in the Willows?
Yes. I think we read the first book together and then I read all the rest from the library. I'm pretty sure we also read Wind in the Willows. I read all of the Hank the Cowdog books, too. That's right...Hank the Cowdog.
Finally something substantial about Nellie the Wonder Dog! LOL!
What was the book you read over and over at recess in the fourth grade instead of playing? Seems like it was Lad, a Dog -- or something like that. And you read and re-read Charlotte's Web, too.
Nellie is a substantial presence in our lives, but it's not entirely about her -- believe it or not. A creature of habit, she will mope if I don't get supper when she thinks I should.
I think it was Hank the Cowdog. It might have seemed like I was re-reading the same book, but there were actually 14 different books. I read The Wizard of Oz a few times and Alice and Wonderland. Oh, I also read Johhny Tremain a bunch of times. I wish I could read during work and get away with it. Those were the days...
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